The Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats is a Flemish conservative liberal political party in Belgium. A smaller fraction within the party has social liberal views.
Vooruit is a Flemish social democratic political party in Belgium. The party was known as the Flemish Socialist Party until 21 March 2021, when its current name was adopted.
The New Flemish Alliance is a Flemish nationalist and conservative political party in Belgium. The party was founded in 2001 by the right-leaning fraction of the centrist-nationalist People's Union (VU).
Flanders is both a cultural community and an economic region within the Belgian state, and has significant autonomy.
Jean-Marie Louis Dedecker is a Belgian politician.
Flemish political parties operate in the whole Flemish Community, which covers the unilingual Flemish Region and the bilingual Brussels-Capital Region. In the latter, they compete with French-speaking parties that all also operate in Wallonia. There are very few parties that operate on a national level in Belgium. Flanders generally tends to vote for right-wing, conservative parties, whereas in French-speaking Belgium the socialist party is usually the most successful one.
Gerolf Emma Jozef Annemans is a Belgian lawyer, journalist and politician of the Flemish nationalist party Vlaams Belang (VB) and formerly of its predecessor, the Vlaams Blok. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 2014, and a city councilor in Antwerp since 2000. He served as a member of the Chamber of Representatives from 1987 to 2014, and as a city councilor in Brasschaat from 1994 to 2000. He was the former leader of the VB from 2012 to 2014, and led the Vlaams Blok and VB parliamentary groups from 1991 to 2013.
Nova Civitas was a Flemish think tank based on the principles of classic liberalism in combination with Anglo-Saxon conservatism. Nova Civitas claimed at its founding to be completely independent, although it was recognized and supported by the Flemish Liberal Party (VLD). The Founding Chairman of Nova Civitas, Boudewijn Bouckaert, was a long-time board member of the VLD.
Boudewijn Bouckaert is a Belgian law professor, a member of the Flemish Movement, and a libertarian conservative thinker and politician. He was a Member of the Flemish Parliament for the liberal party List Dedecker. He is also a former president of the Belgian classical liberal think tanks Nova Civitas, Cassandra and Libera!.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) rights in Belgium are seen as some of the most progressive in Europe and in the world. In 2021, ILGA-Europe ranked Belgium as second in the European Union for LGBT rights protection, behind Malta.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 10 June 2007. Voters went to the polls in order to elect new members for the Chamber of Representatives and Senate.
Libertarian, Direct, Democratic is a conservative-liberal, libertarian, right-wing populist Flemish political party in Belgium.
Derk Jan Eppink is a Dutch journalist, politician in the Netherlands, and former cabinet secretary for European Commissioners Bolkestein (1999–2004) and Kallas (2004–2007). In 2009, he was elected to the European Parliament for List Dedecker, and in 2019 for Forum for Democracy. In 2021, he became an MP in the Dutch House of Representatives for the JA21 party.
Lieve Van Ermen is a Flemish politician and cardiologist. She was directly elected to the Belgian Senate by the Dutch electoral college for the Dedecker List with 25,462 preferential votes in the 2007 federal election, which took place on 10 June 2007. From 2000 to 2006, she was a municipal councillor in Kalmthout for the Flemish Liberals and Democrats.
The 2007–2008 Belgian government formation followed the general election of 10 June 2007, and comprised a period of negotiation in which the Flemish parties Flemish Liberal Democratic, Christian Democratic and Flemish (CD&V) and New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), and the French-speaking parties Reformist Movement (MR), Democratic Front of Francophones (FDF) and Humanist Democratic Centre (CdH) negotiated to form a government coalition. The negotiations were characterized by the disagreement between the Dutch- and French-speaking parties about the need for and nature of a constitutional reform. According to some, this political conflict could have led to a partition of Belgium.
Bart Albert Liliane De Wever is a Belgian politician. Since 2004, De Wever has been the leader of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), a political party advocating for the independence of Flanders. He is also a member of the Chamber of Representatives. De Wever played a prominent role in the 2007 Belgian government formation and presided over his party's victory in the 2010 federal elections when N-VA became the largest party in both Flanders and in Belgium as a whole.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 13 June 2010, during the midst of the 2007-11 Belgian political crisis. After the fall of the previous Leterme II Government over the withdrawal of Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats from the government the King dissolved the legislature and called new elections. The New Flemish Alliance, led by Bart De Wever, emerged as the plurality party with 27 seats, just one more than the francophone Socialist Party, led by Elio Di Rupo, which was the largest party in the Wallonia region and Brussels. It took a world record 541 days until a government was formed, resulting in a government led by Di Rupo.
Cemal Çavdarlı is a binational Turkish-Belgian politician, formerly active in the Socialist Party – Differently (SP.A), since May 2010 in the Lijst Dedecker (LDD), a conservative liberal party and since April 2011 in the Islamic conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey.
Federal elections were held in Belgium on 26 May 2019, alongside the country's European and regional elections. All 150 members of the Chamber of Representatives were elected from eleven multi-member constituencies.
